Posted
by
BeauHDon Thursday December 07, 2017 @02:00AM
from the good-news-for-people-who-like-bad-news dept.

According to a new analysis of the most realistic climate models to date, global temperature rise by 2100 could be 15 percent higher than the highest projections from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). What this means is that cuts in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) will have to be even greater than expected to meet the Paris climate target of keeping global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius. Motherboard reports: The world is a long way from making sufficient emission reductions to meet the Paris climate targets to begin with -- nevermind cutting out another 15 percent. But there's some good news, too. Both rich and poor countries have begun to move away from coal and oil, the two biggest CO2 sources, according to many energy analysts. Patrick Brown is a researcher at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Pasadena, California, a co-author of the study published Wednesday in Nature. "Our results imply 15 percent less cumulative emissions than previously calculated [are needed] in order to stay below 2 degrees Celsius," he told me. Brown and co-authors focused on finding out what future warming might be, using only the climate models that best replicate observations over the last 15-20 years. On a business-as-usual emissions trajectory, they found that the mean global temperature rise would be 4.8 degrees Celsius by 2100, compared to the IPCC estimate of 4.3 degrees Celsius. The latter estimate is considered catastrophic for our planet, and would lead to sea level rise of over 30 feet, potentially putting the homes of 600 million people underwater.

Once the sea-level rises and fisheries die out, New England and California will be washed away, leaving nothing in the U.S. but flyover country. And Chicago I guess. Of course, the energy moguls responsible for this will be able to easily relocate.

The fisheries won't die out, they'll just switch to "fish" that prefer an acidic environment and that people find disgusting. But there are already people who eat jellyfish, and that looks like a recipe for them...and probably squid and octopus. Things that don't have bones or calcium based shells. Sharks would be right up there, but they reproduce too slowly, so they are already endangered from people eating them.

As for sea level rises...it depends on how thorough the melt is. If Antarctica goes Chicag

It is likely going to be much higher co2 emissions because massive numbers of new coal plants are still going in. China continues to add 30-50 GW of new coal plants each year just in China. At the same time, they are adding 100+ GW of new coal plants in other nations. Then on top of that, they are exporting their coal which is some of the worst in the world.
Then add in trump trying to save coal in America. We will not add more coal here, but we will likely increase export. The only good part is that it is much cleaner than China's, but it will still pollute heavily regardless.

Nice story bro, pity China has been cancelling many of these proposed coal plants, as many as half already, they at least accept the simple proven science, being a country that is getting smarter, rather than one who is determined to dive itself over an intellectual cliff into irrelevance.Sad.

Yes, pity for you that he is right [mining.com]. China LOVES to trumpet when it does something "good" in one little corner, but ignores all the "bad" it does everywhere else. Living there for 6 years, you get used to seeing how Beijing will use a singular, small initiative to claim it is doing something - and continue to not apply that initiative in 95% of the country.

For example, China claims that air pollution is getting much better [acs.org]. But independent measurements show a drastic difference [qz.com]. Go to Ningbo in the summer. Wonder why the official temperature is never over 44, even though your calibrated thermometer shows 46 or 47? Because if the official temperature is 45 or higher, then factories must have air conditioning installed. So thus, the official temperature never is above 44 - even if outside it is well above that.

The part that makes me the maddest about this is that the far left are so attached to the lies that they really do not give a flying fuck about the facts.
All they want to do is blame the easy target even though America continues to come down in CO2.
I really wanted to see our coal mining die, which trump could not have brought it back. However,with china building these new coal plants esp in South America, there is little doubt that coal production will continue in America due to China. Sad.
The good new

Yes they have. They have also been decommissioning older ones at an incredible pace and now vastly outstripped the USA and many European countries in the percentage of new projects providing green power. But I get it, it's all Jina's fault. Not the fault of the country with one of the largest per capita emissions in the world, with one of the largest energy consumption per household in the world, and the only country who thinks the Paris Accords is just so "not fair and I don't want to play anymore".

China poured more concrete in the last ten years then the USA poured in the entire 20th century. And China is not rebuilding the world after WWII or supplying the USSR with raw materials during WWII. China is polluting its own people, building man made islands on top of coral reefs and other massive environmentally questionable projects all for its own benefit. But we elected Trump and now we're the bad guys again.

actually, it would not have mattered. There is a chinese based troll here whose job it is to knock America and try to make it all about America, while ignoring the real facts.
Anybody that pushes per capita while ignoring facts of total CO2 is simply lying as much as the CHinese gov is about coal and cracking.

It is likely going to be much higher co2 emissions because massive numbers of new coal plants are still going in. China continues to add 30-50 GW of new coal plants each year just in China. At the same time, they are adding 100+ GW of new coal plants in other nations. Then on top of that, they are exporting their coal which is some of the worst in the world.
Then add in trump trying to save coal in America. We will not add more coal here, but we will likely increase export. The only good part is that it is much cleaner than China's, but it will still pollute heavily regardless.

Bro, you are still peddling a 15-year old view that no longer holds sway. Your description of China might have been accurate 15-20 years ago. But c'mon, where the hell have you been? Under a rock or something?

Yes, I'm done trying to save your planet. 'll just use what I got and screw you.

The planet is going to be fine. It's been around for 4.5 billion years. It's had to deal with worse, solar flares, comets and asteroids hitting it all the time, humans are nothing. Essentially we will purge ourselves from this planet and allow nature to go on about its business without us screwing with it.

Go read the Lazard report. Sure we can make solar cheaper than nuclear, it just can't be on our rooftops. Again, go read the report.

The most expensive nuclear power is still cheaper than the cheapest residential solar installation. Rooftop solar on commercial and industrial rooftops is the same price as nuclear. The only kind of solar energy source we know of that can provide power through even a portion of the night is solar thermal with storage. The only kind of solar that is cheaper than nuclear is

If grid scale solar costs the same as nuclear, then we should be building the crap out of that, because as you pointed out nuclear is the cheapest thing out there... and we can get all the benefits for the same costs with even lower risks!

Roof top solar might be more expensive, but clearly it's economically beneficial for some people in some situations... my house is at a high latitude, and poorly positioned for rooftop solar, and my calculations

Rooftop solar may well be more expensive per se, but with other approaches every middleman takes a cut, so the cost to the individual may be less even though the costs of the installation are greater.

OTOH, most rooftop solar systems don't include in their costs sufficient battery power to sustain overnight. So you get a favorably biased system costs, as the utility has to cover for when the sun is down, and it has to swallow the excess when the sun is up.

* Solar Thermal with Storage is a perfectly good alternative to Nuclear.

Yes it is. Although that even comes with caveats.

What bothers me about the continuous claims of how solar is cheaper therefore everyone should have solar panels on their rooftops. Not all solar is the same just like not all nuclear is Chernobyl and Fukushima.

But nuclear is dangerous! That's just like saying solar is cheap. When people say "solar" what do they mean? When people say nuclear what do they mean? If someone wants to say that nuclear is dangerous because of Fukushima and Chernobyl

2) "Oh No, things are much worse than we thought". A story based on an outlier which makes apocalyptic predictions

3) If anyone disputes this go to 1). Also accuse them of being an outlier which makes things seem less apocalyptic.

By which process the future is both known with perfect accuracy and continuously getting worse unless we adopt some expensive policy. Actually if you read carefully almost no one globally is adopting these policies. The few places that did - Germany for example - found their CO2 emissions rising, and many that ignored them completely like the US found CO2 emissions falling due to a switch from coal to fracked gas.

And if you look at instrument readings it's clear that the models overstated the amount of warming.

Ironically people like Matt Ridley who get denounced as deniers are making predictions which are near the bottom of the range of the model predictions. Meanwhile environmental activists are making predictions which are way above that range.

Are you intellectually or emotionally not able to handle a future where climate change causes a lot of stress to our social, political, or economic systems? Is your fantasy world of "everything is fine, you're all wrong" more comforting to you?

Are you afraid that you'll be forced to change your life as part of a large-scale drive to mitigate these issues?

Maybe he is concerned that the "solution" to the problem of Climate Change is "carbon credits" and a switch to more expensive sources for energy, all which impact the middle/lower class. Of course, the rich get richer and aren't affected.

I am not denying human influence on climate change, or even the numbers in TFA, but predictions about what happens 80 years from now are rather funny if you take into account that just one major volcano outbreak (read: mount Fuji, the Vesuvian supervolcano system, Yellowstone, or the unpronouceable Icelandic ones) can turn those numbers upon their heads and throw us into a long nuclear winter. And the probabilty is high for at least one of those popping within our lifetimes.

The temp change and sea level rise will be seen as a minor annoyance compared to the vast changes to agriculture that will happen.

Weeds that were normally killed by the yearly frost, will survive winter. Insects that get killed by frost will survive and invade new niches.

Lots of agricultural land, never under any threat of any sea level rise, might get rendered unusable for agriculture due the pests that do not start from scratch every year. Very large fluctuations in food supply can happen and it would trigger wars and migration like we have seen before. These are bigger threats than sea level rise. And why we immediately jump to sea level rise? Why is the media playing up the "sea level rise" doomsday a lot more than they deserve to? Any blood red Iowa farmer will tell you forsythia is blooming four weeks early now, croci are breaking ground in December, and daffodils and tulips are emerging in March. He will tell you the bugs that he has never seen before invading his property. But these stories are not getting the media attention.

That's what you get when you anticipate predictions mostly based on things we know for sure. Most new things we learn make it worse, not better. Our estimates are not estimates, they're the lowers bounds.

Global warming is real, but a 30 foot sea level rise by 2100 is not. The article's source was this article [carbonbrief.org], but note right off the bat: "It would be a steady climb, with sea levels taking centuries to rise this far." Not by 2100. Sea level rises in response to climate forcing take time, they don't happen the instant that the atmosphere gets hotter. And it's a curve that accelerates with time (most of the rise is backloaded). It can take much of a millennium for sea levels to adjust to new atmospheric conditions.

For 2100, you're only looking at somewhere around 2m, give or take (up from previous ~1m estimates, which have been shown to underestimate accelerating rates of land ice loss). That said, the important thing is not the "2m higher on a typical day" aspect, but the "2m higher on top of storm surges" aspect.

Sea level rises in response to climate forcing take time, they don't happen the instant that the atmosphere gets hotter. And it's a curve that accelerates with time (most of the rise is backloaded).

Our models predicting a curvature have been proven wrong every year since 1993 when we started satellite tracking of sea level rise. The actual data shows an impressively linear 3mm per year. There is no evidence refuting that linear rise. There is no evidence supporting the model's prediction of a curvature.

Our models predicting a curvature have been proven wrong every year since 1993 when we started satellite tracking of sea level rise. The actual data shows an impressively linear 3mm per year. There is no evidence refuting that linear rise. There is no evidence supporting the model's prediction of a curvature.

Recent research has found some problems with earlier satellite tracking of sea level rise:

That said, the important thing is not the "2m higher on a typical day" aspect, but the "2m higher on top of storm surges" aspect.That does not make any sense.Sea levels are on most nautic maps defined as the lowes thinkable point in the lowest low tide (earth, moon, sun in one direction).So sea levle rises would obviously based on some nautic system, and not on a hypothetical storm surge.

In other words: if you look on a sea map, the water depths are given for low tide, in nip tide situations.

Trump already bought insurance against rising ocean levels for his sea side golf course in Scotland. Then dropped the US out of Paris accord soon after. Guess he wants to get bang in claims for his buck.

How strong does the evidence have to be before Republicans believe there's a real problem?

Oh, I think some believe that it is an actual problem. They simply don't give a fuck, as there's money to be made right now. They will be long dead before the problem starts having a catastrophic impact, so they view it as SEP (Somebody Else's Problem).

Because small-source renewables generate little energy per square meter of device, deploying enough of them to feed the grid means energy sprawl. My Christmas card this year is that cartoon of Santa and his reindeer dangling from a wind turbine.

For a cleaner environment and zero carbon, we could take the opportunity to move from fossil to nuclear while Republicans are still in office. I seeno sign of such an initiative from Trump, though.

Economics says no to nuclear power. The only way it can compete in the current energy market is if the government wants to subsidize it with a lot of money. Now it may be that we should be doing that in order to combat global warming but the politics aren't there yet.

Climate sensitivity to CO2 [wattsupwiththat.com] is about half to one third of what the IPCC models claim it is. That's what the actual data says. Nobody is denying that CO2 isn't a "greenhouse gas", just that it is not the most dominant one (water vapor and methane trounce it) and that its impact is vastly overrated (this study, for one). However, it's easy to regulate economies based upon their CO2 emissions, so it is convenient to force massive wealth transfers, such as the Paris Accord was to do (where China, the leading

Every climate model also moddels water vapour, are you really such an idiot?I don't know about trillions of money going from the US to China, tell me more about it.Does the US have such a budget? Who does get the mone?

Wow. AC ignores everything because he doesn't like the message! the study was published in the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, was written by Drs. Christ and McNider, and 100% funded by US Department of Energy money, allocated in 2016. But hey - denier! Easy label to toss out when you don't like the data...

I don't really understand the purpose of these constant doom-and-gloom projections.

So then what is the point?

The purpose is that there are STILL people who deny it (see the numerous comments in this thread), and who justify not doing anything by pointing out that the model is not perfect and we don't know everything. The point is to keep building that evidence.

Plus, this work also informs mitigation. Where we build new infrastructure is very different in a world where we expect sea levels to rise by 1m than one where we expect sea levels to rise 3m.

The news keeps coming because news keeps happening. It may *feel* like the same news over and over to you, but the magnitude, speed, and precise distribution of change are all open scientific questions, and having precise answers to those questions is extremely valuable. These are things a scientifically literate populace needs to continue to be aware of.

Can you, as an isolated individual, stop the tide of change or mitigate the cost to society? No. But that's begging the question: you're not an isolated

That seems to be what politics has done the last 30 years. Apparently wiping out humanity is some secret goal of politics. After attempts to sterilize the planet with nukes have failed, global warming seems to be the fallback-plan.

How much of that debt was because of the stupid wars of the last President's predecessor and the Great Recession when deficit spending was actually warranted to minimize the economic chaos that ensued. The national debt is only an issue when there's a Democrat in the Whitehouse, otherwise as Dick Cheney said "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." [wikiquote.org], at least as long as there's a Republican in the Whitehouse.

We should anticipate less so that to compensate for the anticipation effects.

We did. The official reports refused to include projections that were too pessimistic to make the results more politically palatable. To be fair, they also refused to include projections that projected cooling, and there were a couple. Then they took the average of the reports they decided to accept. They had to know they were low-balling the numbers. Unfortunately, it's starting to look like the correct models were some of the ones they rejected for being too pessimistic.

Just look at all the accurate claims about what would happen by today. I've been hearing this crap since the 70s. They always make extreme claims that will happen just far enough over the horizon to be unassailable, but require immediate action...but the threat never materializes.

I am comparing actual data to their dire predictions made 20 years ago and calling them on their shit. And, I will be the denier

What predictions? That there will be increased temperature and more erratic weather? Check, that happened.That there would be meltoffs in the north and south poles? Check, that happened.That there would be increases in methane output from permafrost? Check that happened.That Cyclone and Tornado activity would increase? Check that happened.

A few years ago we had a run of straight 40c+ days lasting nearly a month in my home town. Thats never happened before. Over on the east coast of australia , every goddamn year we've had flooding events for nearly a decade now, and its running havock on the economy.

Its easy to put your fingers in your ears and try and nitpick predictions from 20 years ago at a time when modelling was in its infancy, whilst pretending the evidence in front of your very own eyes does not count somehow.

But that doesn't make you "scientific" or "skeptical". It makes you a gullible fools who falls for manipulative conspiracy theories.

You are an double idiot because you don't even grasp your own language.

We have three kinds of trends: flat, increase, decrease. E.g. we could have an increase of rents by about 10% over 3 years as a trend.

Suddenly we have only 7% over a course of 3 years. So the trend decreased (the trend is down) but the direction of the trend, an increase of rent has not changed at all.

As the amount of tropical storms has increased decade after decade, I don't see a change in the trends direction. Perhaps in its speed? No idea, I don't need to know how quickly the rate of devestating storms is increasing.

I ditched my stocks of Muenchner Rueck decades ago. (I guess you don't know who/what that company is... but that does not matter)

Please plot the number of storms and cyclones since, say, 2000. Then do a linear fit (since AGW proponents love linear fits). You'll find the trendline is negative. Using this data [wikipedia.org], then plotting the number of tropical cyclones, I get a linear fit of -0.2436X+19.203 - that is a negative slope. Doing so for the number of tropical storms, and hurricanes results in slopes that are also negative (-0.0918x+16.039 and -0.08846x+8.1373, respectively). That would indicate a declining number of events since 200

Perhaps you should read and grasp the links you show.The hurricane link is about hurricanes thad made _landfall_ in the _USA_It ignores all other hurricanes, that did not make landfall, all taifoons etc. or Orkans.

You link about ice in Antarctica is also moot. The article claims that bottom line - due to global warming - there ends up more snow. Ice is melting a very little bit slower than it is repaxed by snow.Befor that article researchers estimated Antarctica would contribute about 0.27mm sea level ride per year.Now they estimate it is reducing the sea level rise by anout 0.23mm per year. The difference is 0.6mm in sea leacel rise: were they don't know from where it is comming

The trend over the last 20 to 25 years [wikipedia.org] is definitely down. Not just for those that land (which tend to also follow the, for lack of a better word, trend), but for all, even those which dissipate over the ocean.

As far as Antarctica, what study shows the mass of snow and ice is not accumulating? it's gaining - not losing. In every single study you'll find that covers the entire continent (not just cherry-picked little areas).

But glaciers are disappearing elsewhere - and the overall trend is toward melting.

Just because Antarctica - which even if it's warming is still cold enough for snow to fall - accumulates ice doesn't change the fact that globally on average, land ice is melting and sea levels are rising. So your factoid - even if 'true', is an interesting, but ultimately meaningless data point in the discussion. But keep on listening to the Fox experts repeat it...

Combined, Antarctica (~90%) and Greenland (10%) contain ~99% of all freshwater on Earth. Antarctica is increasing its total ice mass [nasa.gov]. And surprisingly to many, Greenland is as well [climatedepot.com]. Now, the other 1% of freshwater - all those glaciers - may be losing, but they are offset by what is happening on the two main ice sheets. Overall, the world seems to be accumulating ice in spite of localized losses, meaning the global climate is towards ice accumulation whilst local weather may be towards ice loss.

The data-adjusters take misaligned and incomplete sea level data from tide gauges that show no sea level rise (or even a falling trend). Then, they subjectively and arbitrarily cobble them together, or realign them. In each case assessed, PSMSL data-adjusters

It's only the highest temperature ever in the 2000s if you scrub out the actual highest temperature ever in the 1920s by saying the metering back then wasn't accurate. Except the metering were analog readings. That's the whole reason of "conspiracy" with the East Anglia data breech where it was revealed they dropped the inconvenient data to show warming. If you don't have warming, you don't need research, you don't need funding, and you don't have reasons to take from the rich nations to give to the poor

DNA shows my ancestors came from Doggerland, for centuries now under the seas. So now we live up a hill (noted that many seaboard denizens haven't heard the news, from New Orleans to BanglaDesh). Up here, we'd be grateful for warmer weather. Make your own way, people. Darwin is watching.

I am comparing actual data to their dire predictions made 20 years ago and calling them on their shit. And, I will be the denier.

The IPCC has done exactly this for years. The real outcomes have typically fallen in the "expected" to "bad" ranges, occasionally approaching the "worst case scenario" outcomes.

The data have always fallen on the "bad" end of the scale. In fact, they've put some effort into figuring out why things like ice melt and sea rise consistently end up worse than the predicted mid-range. You may see some improbable claims on occasion, but overall the climate shift has exceeded predictions. Comparing old predictions to new data has consistently shown one thing: the level of alarm is justified, and perhaps it should be higher.

When the expectations are bad outcomes and you consistently meet or exceed those expectations, you need to change what you're doing.

There are lots of different predictions, and you can always find wrong ones. If I looked hard enough I could probably find one that projected glaciers in London. So you can't prove anything by retrospectively picking a prediction that was wrong. You need to either prospectively predict it was wrong and publish refutable reasons, of do a massive retrospective survey of all published models, which is a task nobody has been up to. The IPCC(?) did a prospective report on a bunch of models that they found ac

Can you add a link to the molar adsorptivity of CO2 for the IR spectrum where the water cross section doesn't overlap? The cross section is well-characterized, but I can't find out how much energy can be deposited into a mole of CO2 in that particular wavelength (5-8 micron) region.

I've read through it, can you point out where the units of energy per mole are indicated? It's showing absorption bands related to frequency, and notes that the modes are vibrational or translational. But you can't calculate energy deposition with them, just that there will be absorption.

I had a similar experience but from a physical chemistry perspective. When you look at the IR+RAMAN spectra for CO2 and H2O it becomes clear that there is absolutely no amount of CO2 that will cause significant warming (the peaks from CO2 are already highly saturated, meaning adding more isn't going to make it any warmer--like having 50 washrags stacked on your chest and trying to get warm by stacking 50 more directly on top of them, where H2O is like a blanket).

Any observed warming can be easily explained with water vapor concentrations, which have also been increasing. The method to deal with that kind of warming doesn't involve shutting down all industry in the world and instituting global communism. In fact, since H2O is in such a tight equilibrium that warming can be fixed in a few days if it becomes bad enough that we have to do it.

You might want to read these articles about why your "CO2 is saturated" argument is wrong:

Also, I'm curious how you think we can fix the warming in a few days by doing something about water vapor? With over 70% of the planet covered by water I don't see any way of significantly affecting the level of water vapor in the atmosphere.